I. A brief tour of distributive justice

a. Libertarianism: beyond protecting natural rights to property and non-interference, society owes nothing to its members. Coerced taxation —whether to fund benefits for the least advantaged or for “public goods” such as national defense, environmental protection, parks, roads, and so on—is theft.

i. Rawls: cooperation gives each a claim to fair shares.

b. Socialism: a just society must work collectively to ensure that everyone’s life goes equally well, by compensating people for any ways they suffer undeserved misfortune.

i. Rawls: an equitable distribution need not be an equal one.

c. Utilitarianism: distribute goods in whatever way is necessary to maximize overall happiness.

i. Rawls: the parties will not agree ahead of time to any principles that might allow them to wind up slaves.

II. Where on the U.S. political spectrum?

i. Libertarians: far to the right on economic policy, far to the left on “social issues” which concern individual liberty.

ii. Socialists: far left on economic issues, (potentially) to the right on social issues.

iii. Rawlsians: center-left on social issues, center-left on economic policy.

iv. Utilitarians: center-left on social issues, center-right on economic policy.

III. Fairness in the international context

a. Agricultural subsidies

b. What trade rules would be fair? The ones representatives of each country would agree to not knowing what society they represent.

c. Like Rawls’s own “international original position” (Betiz, pp. 133-4). For Rawls, his two principles can apply within societies without applying across them.

IV. Beitz: Rawls’s two principles must apply globally if they apply at all. A “global original position”: parties represent individuals and are ignorant of their nationality and citizenship.

a. In this sense, Beitz accepts cosmopolitanism.

V. Six main steps:

a. STEP ONE: “the requirements of justice apply to institutions and practices…in which social activity produces relative or absolute benefits or burdens that would not exist if the social activity did not take place.” (Betiz, p. 131)

b. STEP TWO:

i. Economic benefits and costs that would not exist if societies were isolated from one another (“autarky”). (Beitz, pp. 145, 152)

ii. These costs and benefits constitute “relative or absolute benefits and burdens.” (Beitz, p. 145-8)

c. STEP THREE: In fact, there exists a “global regulative structure” (Betiz, pp. 148, 152), which includes: the World Trade Organization and the North American Free Trade Agreement; the World Bank and International Monetary Fund; and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

d. STEP FOUR: “Since [national] boundaries are not coextensive with the scope of social cooperation, they do not mark the limit of social obligations.” (Betiz, p. 151)

e. STEP FIVE: “Thus [on Rawls’s theory] the parties to the original position cannot be assumed to know that they are members of a particular national society, choosing principles of justice primarily for that society. The veil of ignorance must extent to all matters of national citizenship….” (Betiz, p. 151)

f. STEP SIX: “Assuming that Rawls’s arguments for the two principles are successful, there is no reason to think that the content of the principles would change as a result of enlarging the scope of the original position so that the principles would apply to the world as a whole.” (Beitz, p. 151)

g. CONCLUSION: So if Rawls’s two principles apply at all, they apply globally. According to the “global difference principle,” international institutions have to be arranged so that social and economic inequalities are to the greatest possible benefit of the worst off person of the world. (Beitz, p. 152-3)

VI. Objections?

a. Challenge Rawls’s theory in the domestic case?

b. More like a state of nature?

c. Not just several different kinds of established social practices, but a unified structure.

i. The leaders of all nations as a sort of legislature?

ii. This does not take us beyond an international original position to a global one.

VII. A gap between STEP FOUR and STEP FIVE.

a. Beitz’s cosmopolitanism: not a conclusion, but a premise.

b. Diogenes, 4th Century B.C.: “I am neither Athenian nor Greek, I am a citizen of the world.”

c. An alternative?